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Robert J. Sawyer

Robert J. Sawyer Biography

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“What … what other species are still endangered?” asked Ponter. Mary shrugged a little. “Lots of kinds of birds. Giant tortoises, Panda bears. Sperm whales, Chim…” “Chim?” said Ponter. “What are---?” He tilted his head, perhaps listening to Hak providing its best guess at the word Mary had started to say. “Oh, no. No. Chimpanzees? But … these are our cousins. You hunt our cousins?” Mary felt all of two feet tall. How could she tell him that chimps were killed for food, that gorillas were murdered so their hands could be made into exotic ashtrays? “They are invaluable,” continued Ponter. “Surely you, as a geneticist, must know that. They are the only close living relatives we have; we can learn much about ourselves by studying them in wild, by examining their DNA.” “I know,” said Mary, softly. “I know.” Ponter looked at Reuben, then at Louise, and then at Mary, sizing them up, it seemed, as if he were seeing them—really seeing them—for the first time. “You kill with abandon,” he said. “You kill entire species. You even kill other primates.” He paused and looked from face to face again, as if giving them a chance to forestall what he was about to say, to come up with a logical explanation, a mitigating factor. But Mary said nothing, and neither did the other two, and so Ponter went on. “And, on this world, my kind is extinct.”

KillChimpanzeesPrimatesHominidsExtinctCousins
Book:Hominids
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“Do you think it's possible that things that seem to be discrete in three dimensions might all be part of the same bigger object in four dimensions? ...What if humanity- that collective noun we so often employ- really is, at a higher level, a singular noun? What it what we perceive in three dimensions as seven billion individual human beings are really all just aspects of one giant being?”

IfsThinkingHumansSeemsMightHumanityThreeIndividualHuman BeingsLevelsFourObjectsHigherAspectLogicBiggerSevenBillionsCertaintyUncertaintyPerceiveGiantsReasoningDimensionsCollectivesWhat IfHigher LevelNounsOntologyDiscreteThree Dimensions
Author:Robert J. Sawyer
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“With billions of years, who knows what science might make possible? Why, it might even make it possible for an intelligence, or data patterns representing it, to survive a big crunch and exist again in the next cycle of creation. Such an entity might even have science sufficient to allow it to influence the parameters for the next cycle, creating a designer universe into which that entity itself will be reborn already armed with billions of years worth of knowledge and wisdom.”

KnowsYearsBigsMightUniverseNextTechnologyInfluenceCreationCreatingPatternsBillionsDataSufficientDesignerCyclesEntityRepresentingRebornParametersKnowledge And WisdomCrunch
Author:Robert J. Sawyer
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“Since ancient times, the philosophers' secret has always been this: we know that God does not exist, or, at least, if he does, he's utterly indifferent to our individual affairs--but we can't let the rabble know that; it's the fear of God, the threat of divine punishment and the promise of divine reward, that keeps in line those too unsophisticated to work out questions of morality on their own.”

IfsKnowsDoeIndividualLinesSecretDivineMoralityPromiseThreatRewardsAffairAncientPhilosopherWork OutPunishmentIndifferentAncient Times
Book:Calculating God
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